Ex­cel­lent SAA ser­vice in­vokes 2001 mem­ory

I SHOULD be sleep­ing by now but I feel like I need to write this email to let the peo­ple know how good SAA still is. What they did for me on Mon­day de­serves a front page of re­fresh­ing news from your news­pa­per.

Our com­pany YPLounge (Young Peo­ple Lounge), which is an edu­tain­ment area at OR Tambo In­ter­na­tional Air­port, cre­ated a project to teach young peo­ple about avi­a­tion, and we want young peo­ple to start ex­pe­ri­enc­ing flights so they can de­velop a pas­sion for this in­dus­try.

In Jan­uary, par­ents started pay­ing to­wards their chil­dren’s Flight Ex­pe­ri­ence and Mini Camp in Durban dur­ing the June/July school hol­i­days.

We booked with SAA be­cause it felt right as I still re­mem­ber the amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence I re­ceived from my first flight in 2001.

On our day of travel with 16 young peo­ple, while as­sist­ing my chil­dren to have a beau­ti­ful ex­pe­ri­ence from every­thing at the air­port, the SAA staff were amaz­ing.

While busy at the board­ing gate (D1), I in­jured my knee. The pain was so se­vere that I could not hold back the tears. One of my col­leagues saw me and came to help, but I was avoid­ing the kids.

An­other pas­sen­ger no­ticed me limp­ing and he of­fered to help. When we ar­rived just be­fore the flight, SAA staff mem­ber (whom I only know as) Zanele asked what was wrong and quickly ar­ranged a wheel­chair. Then she re­ported to the flight crew.

They took over by mak­ing sure I was sit­ting where my leg was not go­ing to be dis­turbed at the front in busi­ness class. I was cry­ing be­cause now my chil­dren were in econ­omy and I wanted to be with them the en­tire flight ex­pe­ri­ence. All of them said they en­joyed the flight.

Their smiles warmed my heart, and to know that some­one promised me that they were go­ing to make sure my chil­dren were go­ing to be taken care of, and they did, that is some­thing I can­not sleep over and have peace with­out sharing it with the world.

SAA have the abil­ity to em­ploy good peo­ple. They are still the best, even af­ter 2001. I will hear from you if this de­serves front page or not, but I know they do be­cause of ex­cel­lent ser­vice on flight SA 559. YPLounge mom